The Union Minister for Railways, Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu giving finishing touches to the Railway Budget 2015-16, in New Delhi on February 25, 2015.
The Minister of State for Railways, Shri Manoj Sinha, the Chairman, Railway Board, Shri A.K. Mital and other Board Members are also seen.(PIB)

Online Train Reservation Makes PRS Centres Redundant in Bangalore

With the increasingly easy railway train bookings online, many manual or staff-run reservation centres in Bangalore have been witnessing lesser demand forcing the Indian Railway to shut some of them soon in Bangalore, the tech capital of the country.

The Bengaluru division of the South Western Railway said the passenger reservation system (PRS) centres in the City will soon be revamped to shrink them in number and three of them have already been shut down.

These three centres were in KR Market, Indira Nagar and Austin Town. Two more have identified at Anekal and Electronic City.

With 70 PRS centres in Bangalore, the Railways found some of them issuing lesser ticket than the targeted 180 per hour Making it unviable. In fact, the Indian Railways is introducing Automatic Ticket Vending Machines and Cash/Smart Card-operated Ticket Vending Machines to do away with the PRS centres.

However, Bangalore reeling under constant load-shedding is unlikely to stand up to review expectations six months later, which may force the Railways to re-introduce the facilities again.